After not hosting a golf tournament in Westchester County since 2007, the PGA Tour is back ”“ and for the long haul, it hopes ”“ to the delight of local businesses and charities.
From Thursday, Aug. 18 through Sunday, Aug. 21, the PGA Tour will hold the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship at the Westchester Country Club in Harrison.
With a field that includes no fewer than 17 former PGA Tour major champions, tournament organizers are hoping for between 5,000 and 7,000 spectators each day, and businesses are looking to get in on the action.
While this tournament will draw considerably fewer attendees than The Barclays or the Buick Classic did when they were held at the Westchester Country Club, it is still expected to generate between $15 million and $20 million in revenue for the regional economy, said Steve Schoenfeld, the tournament”™s executive director.
“That number includes everything from local spending, hotels, (and) transportation to state income tax from player earnings,” he said, adding that the large number of people being brought in by title sponsor Constellation Energy Group Inc. would boost the revenue of airlines and limousine services as well.
In addition, he said the county would benefit from tax revenues generated by the dozens of outside contractors working with the club and PGA Tour to help set up in operations.
Schoenfeld said the PGA Tour would like to make the Senior Players Championship, which has been held in Maryland since 2007, a staple in Westchester County.
“Our goal is to keep this tournament in Westchester if we can,” he said, adding that if that was the case, the tournament would likely rotate between three golf clubs in the county. However, he said future tournament locations would depend largely on the wishes of Constellation Energy.
Businesses awaiting the green
The prospect of the tournament being a long-term fixture in Westchester comes as welcome news to local business owners anticipating a virtually-guaranteed busy week amidst the otherwise slower summer months.
Lisa McKiernan, principal at the Pearl Restaurant Group and owner of Morgan”™s Fish House in Rye, which is located just over a mile away from the Westchester Country Club, said her restaurant thrived when the PGA Tour was in town.
Without a tournament in Westchester over the past several summers, she said her restaurant and the other establishments under the umbrella of the Pearl Restaurant Group, including two in Rye and one in nearby Greenwich, Conn., “absolutely” felt the financial impact and saw a noticeable drop in business.
“It”™s great for our business. Traditionally, it used to be one of the busiest weeks of the year when the Buick was in town,” McKiernan said. “We took a big hit when they left town.”
Through 2007, the Westchester Country Club had hosted a PGA Tour event every year since 1963, with golf legend Arnold Palmer winning the Thunderbird Classic over Paul Harney in a playoff that year. Westchester Country Club President Nick Cammarano Jr. said the club was happy to see the tour”™s return.
“The members are very excited to have these players back,” he said. “This will be the first (time hosting the Senior Players Championship) and we would hope eventually in the next two or three years that it”™ll come back here. We”™re thrilled to have them back.”
Prior to 2007, the PGA Tour signed a five-year contract with the Westchester Country Club to host a FedEx Cup tournament at the club in three out of the five years, starting with The Barclays in August 2007. However, last year PGA Tour officials approached Cammarano and asked about hosting a major championship instead on a rotational basis, which Cammarano said fulfilled the previous contract.
While the club president admitted that “it”™s not The Barclays,” he welcomed the prospect of hosting dozens of golf”™s most popular athletes at a tournament that would put less stress on the club and on its famed West Course.
“Having the only tournament around, it helps with the recruitment of new members,” Cammarano said. “It”™s a positive thing and it”™s a good thing for the community.”
Nonprofits to profit, too
Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the PGA Tour hosting a tournament locally are the area not-for-profits. Schoenfeld said that over the past several years, the Senior Players Championship has generated roughly $400,000 annually for charities.
“The goal of our event and really every event on the PGA Tour is for the net proceeds to go to charities,” he said.
One PGA Tour initiative, dubbed Tickets Fore Charity, offers registered 501(c)(3) organizations the chance to promote the sale of tickets to this year”™s tournament and to keep all of the proceeds. Tickets to this year”™s event have been set at $20 a day and there is no limit to the number of tickets an individual charity organization can sell, meaning a charity that sells 100 tickets will raise $2,000. So far, Schoenfeld said 50 organizations are participating.
“It exceeded our goal,” he said. “In our first year in Westchester we had hoped to get 30 or 40 groups involved.”
In addition, any 501(c)(3) organization that can muster 50 or more volunteers for the event is given $10,000 by the PGA Tour.
Cammarano said the ability to provide a boost to local charity organizations and to the community is “probably the number one reason” the club elected to host the tournament this week.
“When the tournaments weren”™t here the past few years, the charities took a bang,” he said.
